In today’s rundown: A program that kept families from becoming homeless runs out of funding. Looking at women’s poverty from several angles. And why we can’t forget homeless women in the HIV/AIDS fight in D.C.
— Housing Counseling Services, a Women’s Foundation Grantee Partner, has stopped taking applications for the District-funded Emergency Rental Assistance Program (ERAP). Designed to prevent and resolve homelessness by providing financial assistance to eligible households, HCS is “virtually out of ERAP funds.” This “will likely result in increased and prolonged homeslessness for District households.” HSC recommends that families in need check in with the Homeless Prevention Hotline at (202)667-7339 in case HSC is awarded additional ERAP funds. HSC will continue to offer housing counseling, workshops and technical assistance.
— The poverty rate for single mothers is exceptionally high, even when food stamps and earned income tax credits are counted, according to The Women’s Legal Defense and Education Fund.
— “Don’t forget D.C.’s homeless women in the HIV/AIDS fight,” writes the executive directors of N Street Village and Miriam’s House in a letter to the editor in The Washington Post. They write that homeless women in the region at 150 percent more likely to have HIV/AIDS than the rest of the population.
